Month: September 2017

Hey everybody!
While my games day blog from earlier this week has described how I haven’t really had a lot of time to be doing much in the way of gaming this last month or so, I do seem to have found the time to build a few miniatures lately, so I thought I’d take a brief look around the old tabletop and catch up with what I’ve been doing!

No real surprise, in light of the recent Codex release, is the preponderance of Adeptus Mechanicus models here. I started to build up the Skitarii Rangers (and those two Vanguard) a couple of weeks before the Codex arrived, and have been steadily adding to the ranks of unpainted Rangers right up to this weekend just gone. Having now picked up the Codex, I’m pleased to see there haven’t been any differences in unit composition compared with the Index, just a slight points difference. These sorts of things always concern me a little, so I’m glad that I can now plough on with these chaps.

You may recall that I painted up five Rangers back in July? Well, it’s time to try and really get going now with a massive force of these implacable robot-men!

These recent efforts have been in an attempt to get moving with my Imperial Soup army that I discussed in the blog linked above. That army involves 23 Adeptus Mechanicus models, and I’m very close to having everything at least built. I still need to get the Vanguard built, of course, and the Dominus, but still!

For that same army, I’ve already had the three groups of Scions built, but now have added the Chimera and Commissar to the roster.

Of course, now I just need to paint them!

The Commissar model in particular went together really nicely, I have to say. I still wanted to do a little conversion to him, as I fancied getting a power fist on there somehow, but in the event I put him together as he comes. I’ve now bought a Start Collecting Militarum Tempestus box as well, which also comes with a Commissar, so I might do some work to him instead…

Right now, I’m definitely in a building mood, as I continue to get to grips with how to arrange my paints in my new house. I’ve currently got things scattered all over the place, which is particularly annoying as my house is split across three floors. But hopefully I can get this sorted soon, and then make a start on painting these models. I’ve recently fancied getting those Haemotrope Reactors painted, though, so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to follow up on this soon!!

Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m going to have my industrial board ready in time for this year’s Armies on Parade. Far too much going on right now, after all! But next year…

Hey everybody,
It’s another game day here at spalanz.com, and today I thought I’d deviate from the norm, and ramble a little more than usual in what may turn out to be a shorter blog. It’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, at any rate, so why not!

Long-term readers of this blog, aside from being a handsome bunch, will no doubt be aware of the fact that I moved house recently. I actually bought a house, which itself is something of an achievement, of course! But it comes with a lot of attendant responsibility, naturally, and the particular house that I’ve moved to has been in need of a little work. It’s not falling apart, but it’s not how I’d like it, you know? Anyway. I guess my energy has been channeled into that, leaving me with very little time for anything else.

It may be that increased sense of responsibility, or the increased financial responsibility if nothing else, but I’m finding myself with no real time – and crucially, no real inclination – to play games. In the couple of months since I started packing up my life, I’ve managed three games of Warhammer 40k, which in itself, is an intriguing achievement, but nothing else.

Part of the reason for this, I feel, is that I’m still getting the measure of the new place, and where I can do things. The dining table that I used to play on, which used to be sat in front of a window in my old flat, is now in a comparatively darker corner, and doesn’t lend itself well to long gaming sessions.

In a recent effort to combat this, however, I bought myself The Dreamlands expansion for Eldritch Horror, which has of course been out for a number of months now, but which I hadn’t yet managed to pick up. I thought, getting myself something I’d thought about for a while, for a game that I do very much enjoy, might bring me out of this gaming funk. However, after a week sat at the top of my stairs, I’ve now put it away with the other expansions for that game, largely unlooked-at. It’s a similar story with Path to Carcosa, which I’d picked up the other week in an effort to kick-start my campaign idea for the Arkham Horror LCG, but which has also remained unopened since I bought it.

I suppose this could well just be me over-reacting to a temporary situation, as I try to readjust to the new surroundings and stuff. I do have walls to paint and a kitchen to replace, and have been spending more time at DIY stores than I have been with games, but once the house is more to my liking, I’d guess I’ll be back to it. I’m having some vague ideas about trying to get my girlfriend into playing some games, so that could also be an opening.

The new Magic set, Ixalan, is releasing on Friday, and while I’ve been a bit out of things during the last few months with Amonkhet block going on, I have perked up some more at the thought of vampires and pirates and dinosaurs all running around, so if nothing else, I’m hopeful that I can get some more decks built and see some more cards played!

I’m very curious as to how long this situation is going to last, at any rate…

Hey folks!
While I’ve been reading (and re-reading) all manner of stuff at the minute, I thought I’d talk today about a book that I read a few weeks ago, back when I was moving house and all that attendant nonsense. The Fall of Damnos is the main bulk of the Space Marines Battles: Damnos book, which follows the progress of the Ultramarines’ attempt to liberate the populace of the mining world of Damnos from the return of the Necrons.

To all intents and purposes, I should love this book. Indeed, I’ve thought of it for a long time now as the quintessential Necrons novel.

Boy, was I disappointed.

The story follows several of the Ultramarines 2nd Company, under the legendary Captain Cato Sicarius, as they struggle against the reactivated Necrons across the world. There is a token planetary defense force, but the main populace on the world are the miners who seemingly accidentally wake the slumbering Necrons. There are several battles described, but despite Sicarius’ charisma and battle prowess, it seems the Necrons have the upper hand as they attempt to reclaim their tomb world…

The narrative feels like a series of vignettes for the most part, and at one point actually came across like some kind of attempt to describe a tabletop battle. I’m not a huge fan of that sort of thing, as it often feels like the story is going nowhere as we get several descriptions of epic nothingness. Maybe I’m being too harsh…

Confusingly, one battle group of Ultramarines is referred to as the Immortals, which is around the same time we get the Necron Immortals entering the fray. Kyme even uses different words to describe these guys depending on the point of view – to the Ultramarines, they’re “larger warrior constructs” or something, whereas to the Necrons, they are of course Immortals. Necron Raiders are mentioned quite a lot, often in relation to what I assume otherwise to be Necron Warriors. While the use of Raiders might be a nice throwback to fans of 2nd Edition, I can’t say it held much appeal as a Necron fan.

Indeed, there isn’t really much here for fans of the undead space robots. There’s a mad Overlord, a scheming Cryptek, and the usual insane Flayed Ones, then the most part of the army consists of Warriors/Raiders, and Canoptek Scarabs. Monoliths make an appearance at one point, which is nice, and there may have been a Tomb Stalker mentioned for one incredibly brief moment, but otherwise it’s quite a one-dimensional foe for the brilliant Ultramarines to fight.

As for the Ultramarines themselves, they’re a weird mix of politicking folks who seem to be out for personal glory above all else. Weird, right?

Damnos dates from 2011, and feels very much like “the old” Black Library. Sure, they still put out clunkers and filler-type novels, but in the main, they definitely feel like they’ve upped their game since these days, where they were basically a game company tie-in. We may not be getting Shakespeare now, of course, but we’re getting novels that are actually enjoyable to read, and are worth reading for their own merits, and not merely because they describe the deeds of the plastic men we push around on the tabletop. The Necron lore in particular felt badly written in this one, which put me off it pretty much entirely, but even with that aside, I can’t think of any reason why you’d want to pick this one up today.

Last week, Fantasy Flight put up a very interesting article that explained the way that rotation is going to work for their Netrunner LCG from October, and I have to say, I was utterly fascinated by it – to the point that it’s the subject of this week’s game day blog, in fact!

For the uninitiated, rotation is the definition of an organized play environment for the game, where older sets have been moved out of the pool to prevent that pool from growing prohibitively large. For me, it’s synonymous with Magic the Gathering, where sets rotate out of Standard at set points in the year to ensure the environment is manageable for tournament play. FFG first put up an article about this in 2014, which described how Netrunner would see the first two cycles of data packs rotate out of organized play when the first pack of the eighth cycle was released. That cycle has now been announced as the Kitara cycle, and takes the game to Africa and the Sub Saharan League. As this cycle comes into play, the Genesis and Spin cycles will rotate out, meaning that none of those cards can be used in decks for organized play from this point on.

But it’s not all doom and gloom!

See, FFG are releasing a Revised Core Set, which isn’t just a core set with errata’d cards or something, but is essentially the next way to buy into the game. It doesn’t merely reprint cards from the current set, but rather includes a new mix of cards that features some from the Genesis and Spin cycles that are rotating out, meaning that you may not need to deconstruct those decks, after all!

They have released a card list for the Revised Core Set already, just to help further!

I find this somehow fascinating, and it makes me think that the game is expanding at a sensible rate. It is somewhat similar to the way that Magic works, by having a core set come along with those all-important cards, but the rotation here is so much more leisurely that it doesn’t feel like there’s going to be a mad scramble to keep up. At its smallest extent, there will be five cycles of cards that will form the current meta, which represents a good number of years with which to play these cards. I mean, Netrunner has already been out for what, five years now? That’s a five-year Standard season that allows you to really get a decent amount of play out of your card pool!

Back when they announced rotation originally, I was all for it, and I remain so. The fact that it took almost a year longer to get going than they’d initially thought notwithstanding, I think now that we’re here, and seeing how they’re handling it, I’m really impressed at what’s happening.

Will I be getting a copy of the new core set? Probably not. While I have taken part in Netrunner tournaments in the past, I don’t think it’s something I’m planning to do in the future, so it’s almost irrelevant to me. I’m really pleased to see that the game is being supported so well, however, and I’ll doubtless be buying the data packs as they come out anyway, as casual play is really all I get into these days!

So, the demon primarch Mortarion is coming out tomorrow, and I have to say, I’m actually really excited about the new Death Guard models we’ve been seeing!

Since the arrival of the Dark Imperium set earlier in the summer, I’d been primarily excited for the new Primaris marines, which I do actually like quite a lot. The Death Guard models were, at first, a little too busy for me – and the fact there are so many Poxwalkers to build for that side of the box has somewhat put me off looking at the whole Chaos half of the box. However, a friend of mine posted a picture on instagram of his work-in-progress Nurgle stuff, and it really inspired me to take a look!

So I’ve built up two of them, and have been looking at doing them in an alternate colour scheme to the usual greens. I’ve not gotten very far as it stands, as I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with it, but I think I might go for a tan look, or a pale brown…

I like them, anyway – they’ve got some lovely detail, which I’ve grown to enjoy rather than be intimidated by!

I happened to be in my local game store on Thursday when the owner had his GW delivery, so had a look at the box of Mortarion, and I think that model does look pretty good. I have been slightly intimidated by a lot of these big character models, but seeing him in the store, I did actually think it looked like a great project to sink my teeth into! I haven’t pulled the trigger yet, but don’t be surprised if I suddenly start posting up pictures of the demon primarch here before too long!!

Hey everybody!
For today’s game day blog, I thought I’d return to Magic the Gathering, and an idea that I had a while ago to do a blog showcasing what I think is an excellent set, but a lot of folks in the meta seem to write off as worthless. Last time, I took a look at the M12 core set, and talked a little about why I thought it was a really great looking set overall. Today, I’m continuing this theme with a look at what feels like the red-headed stepchild of Magic sets: it’s time for Champions of Kamigawa!

Champions of Kamigawa was released on 1 October 2004 as the thirty-third expansion for Magic the Gathering. The release came hard on the heels of Mirrodin block, which I’ll get into shortly. With a focus on feudal Japan, the cards heavily tapped into this theme, with all manner of spirits and kami decorating things, while samurai and ninjas popped up throughout the block.

The storyline was about the war between the spirits of the plane of Kamigawa and its mortal inhabitants. These Kami spirits have a particular type of magic referred to as “arcane”, which became a bit of a showcase here, while the regular mortals have cards that are more ordinary within Magic’s history.

Champions of Kamigawa made a number of changes to Magic, which I’ll go through briefly before getting to the new mechanics of the set. Firstly, the block was all about Legends. Legendary Creature was first seen on a card in this set, with every rare card being Legendary to showcase this change. Furthermore, the legend rule was changed – rather than just not being able to play two Legendary cards with the same name, now playing a Legendary card with the same name as one already on the battlefield caused both cards to go to the graveyard, essentially making them a sort of removal for themselves. (It’s important to note that this rule has since been changed again with M14). Defender also became a new evergreen mechanic in this set, replacing “this card cannot attack” on cards.

Let’s talk about new mechanics.

First of all, then, we have Arcane spells, representative of the magic of the Kami spirits. This subtype is found on Instant and Sorcery spells, and while it does nothing by itself, some cards have the rules text “Splice onto Arcane”, followed by a cost of some kind. This allowed players to play an Arcane spell in addition to the card that had the Splice text, but keep that Arcane card in your hand for later use. Sure, your opponent would then know you had that card in your hand, but in theory it could provide a decent deterrent, to say nothing of the fact that you could potentially get multiple uses out of these things. Unfortunately, the mechanic was seen as a little bit clunky, and most often the spells weren’t even worthwhile playing once, let alone multiple times.

It remains something of an ambition of mine to make a spirit/arcane deck and make it work, but as yet, I’ve not managed to get the cards I want…

There are a lot of Spirit creatures in Kamigawa block, and many have the ability Soulshift, usually followed by a number. Soulshift allows you to return target Spirit card with converted mana cost equal to or less than the Soulshift number. This number is invariably one less than the Spirit card going to the graveyard, so they can’t recur themselves.

Again, one to try out with the Spirits deck…

Bushido X is something that I feel should be more flavourful than it ends up being. According to wikipedia, “bushido” evokes the tenets of the way of the samurai, such as compassion, honour and integrity. In the game, the mechanic gives a creature +X/+X whenever it blocks or becomes blocked. I can see the vaguely heroic sort of theme they’re going for there, but the term seems to require more than just a combat pump, you know? It’s still an interesting idea, for sure, and can lead to some interesting tactical choices for your opponent, especially if you have multiple creatures with the mechanic!

Finally, Champions of Kamigawa introduced Flip Cards to the game, which was the first time a card face was so dramatically altered (without counting the new frame design brought out in 8th Edition). These cards are essentially two different cards, one on the top and one on the bottom. When a specific condition is met, the card is flipped 180 degrees and becomes a new permanent. There are quite a few interesting rules things that go on with these flip cards – at least, interesting to geeks like me! First of all, the flip card only ever has the normal characteristics of the top portion (the right side) of the card, unless it is on the battlefield and flipped. So you can’t search for the flipped side of the card, though your opponent can name that side (he just won’t find it). Essentially the bottom portion of a flip card doesn’t exist until the flip condition is met. Once the card has been flipped, that’s it – it can never flip back up the other way. All of the flip cards in the block flip into something Legendary – creatures for Champions and Betrayers, and enchantments for Saviors. Any counters that were on the card before it was flipped will remain on it when the card is flipped, as well, as the card never leaves the battlefield.

Champions of Kamigawa has got some really great theme and flavour, and in fact has some truly all-star cards that see play in decks to this day. Perhaps most notable of all of these is Sensei’s Divining Top, although I should also mention the big dragon spirits, notably Kokusho, the Evening Star. A lot of these cards are still played in Commander, which is of course a bit of a home for all manner of crazy decks and strategies! However, the set does seem to have been otherwise forgotten.

Betrayers of Kamigawa came out on 4 February 2005, and brought along two new mechanics to the Kamigawa party, including the arrival of Ninjas on the scene! Ninjutsu appeared on Creatures with the subtype Ninja, and allowed a player to return an unblocked attacking creature to their hand and pay the associated cost to replace that creature with the Ninja creature instead. Perhaps the best marriage of theme and mechanic yet? At any rate, it’s quite a powerful mechanic, and one that a defending player should be particularly wary of when their opponent has untapped mana. Naturally, Ninjutsu appears most often in blue, so you’d be wary of such untapped mana anyway, but still! Importantly, a card that you Ninjutsu into the game was never declared as an attacker, so anything that cares about such things wouldn’t apply here.

Secondly, we have the exceptionally niche Offering ability. Five Legendary Spirits were printed in the cycle, with the ability that allowed a player to sacrifice a creature of a specific subtype (for example, Snake Offering on Patron of the Orochi), and Flash in the Legendary Spirit by paying the difference in mana costs between it and the sacrificed creature’s cost. So for example, Patron of the Orochi costs six generic mana and two green mana; if you sacrificed Orochi Eggwatcher from Champions, which costs two generic and one green, you could Flash in the big snake dude by just paying four generic and one green. Not a bad trade-off, as you could get a 7/7 for your 1/1 on turn five. There’s an interesting interaction with these Patron cards that’s worth pointing out here, too – Orochi Eggwatcher makes 1/1 Snake tokens, one of which you can sacrifice to bring out Patron of the Orochi. Tokens have no converted mana cost, so you’d have to pay the full cost of the Patron, but it would allow you to flash in a massive 7/7 which is kinda nice!

Betrayers also introduced ki counters, the accumulation of which on a card can lead to specific effects, such as flipping the flip cards printed in this set. However, the set is probably most remembered today for the card Umezawa’s Jitte, the artifact card that keeps gaining charge counters whenever its equipped creature attacks, the removal of said counter giving its equipped creature +2/+2 until end of turn. With all of the counter-abuse available in the game at large, it’s not difficult to create monsters with this thing!

The third set of the block, Saviors of Kamigawa, came out on 3 June 2005. The set features a significant amount of cards that care about the size of your hand, referred to as the Wisdom mechanic (though the mechanic is not keyworded, so never actually appears on cards). Playing into this mechanic has been the ability of the Soratami creature type throughout the entire block. You know Tamiyo, who most recently turned up in Eldritch Moon? Well, her race, the Moonfolk, are native to Kamigawa, although Tamiyo herself didn’t appear until original Innistrad block some years later. Being a race of intellectuals, they have the ability to increase your wisdom by returning land cards to your hand to trigger abilities. It’s kinda cool to have seen this land-return going on for the whole block, but only now really mattering.

Channel is an ability word that appears on several Spirit cards that allows you to essentially treat those creature cards as instants, paying a lower mana cost and gaining a one-time effect rather than paying that card’s higher cost to have the effect on the creature itself. For example, Shinen of Flight’s Wings is a 3/3 Flying Spirit for five (four generic, one blue). You can discard the card and pay its Channel cost (one blue) to give target creature flying until end of turn. This is kinda important for the next new mechanic…

Epic cards are Sorcery cards that are essentially an attempt to create Legendary Sorcery cards. Basically, you cast the spell for its mana cost (between 6 and 10 CMC) and you cannot cast any other spells for the rest of the game. However, at the beginning of your upkeep, you get the effect of this spell again, and continue to do so for each of your upkeep phases for the rest of the game. So for example, Enduring Ideal lets you search for an enchantment card and put it into play. At the beginning of each of your subsequent turns thereafter, you’ll be putting enchantments into play for as long as the game lasts. I think it’s a pretty cool concept, but the abilities of each of these Epic cards are a little underwhelming considering the trade-off you make. In the case of Enduring Ideal, you’d need to make sure you have a lot of good stuff in place already, as you’re pretty much left with what you’ve got out to play the game. Of course, they can’t be too powerful – say you had a card that hit your opponent for direct damage, you’d probably apply too much pressure, given the amount of cards that can interact with that sort of thing. But it’s always interesting to see how these things worked out back in the day!

The last new mechanic is Sweep, an ability word that allowed you to return a number of land cards to your hand and copy an effect for each land card returned in this way. Interesting interaction with the hand-size matters abilities going on in the set, but it has only appeared on four cards in the entire history of Magic, so hardly an impactful mechanic, you know?

Saviors of Kamigawa continues the theme of the block for having one of the all-star artifact cards in the game, this time it’s Pithing Needle, which allows you to turn off the activated abilities of any card when it enters the battlefield, for as long as Pithing Needle is in place. The needle can be particularly powerful for preventing Planeswalkers from using their loyalty abilities, which are activated abilities, as well as a whole host of other things. Heck, you can prevent your opponent attaching Umezawa’s Jitte to a creature by naming it with Pithing Needle!

Interestingly, Saviors of Kamigawa also has a Legendary creature that has been banned for use in Commander due to his power level. Erayo, Soratami Ascendant is a two-cost Moonfolk Monk who, when the fourth spell of a turn has been played, flips into the Legendary Enchantment Erayo’s Essence, which just counters the first spell played by each opponent each turn. Think how crazy easy it can be to flip this guy into a counter-magic machine!

Champions of Kamigawa block has got a lot of interesting cards among its three sets, with theme in abundance and some pretty powerful cards that are still regularly played. With such a huge number of Legendary Creatures in the set, the card type became almost diluted until it was meaningless, though can still now provide a bit of a treasure trove for Commanders. True, these cards are overwhelmingly mono-coloured, but can provide some really interesting decks.

I love the block for its oriental theme, something that we don’t often get a lot of in western culture fantasy, or at least something that we don’t get often where it’s implemented well. Here, the theme is tremendous, and really worthwhile taking the time to investigate. I’ve mentioned a few times how I want to build some decks using these cards, and most recently I’ve been considering how to upgrade my Eldritch Moon prerelease pool from those 40 cards to a proper 60 card blue/white Spirits deck that uses a lot of the fodder here. That’s still a work in progress, anyway!

Something that always saddens me about this block specifically is browsing singles online, and seeing how the huge premium commanded by those cards like Umezawa’s Jitte, Ghostly Prison, Eight and a Half Tails, Kiki-Jiki Mirror Breaker, etc, how it just drops to the majority of the set being less than a couple of pounds/dollars. Despite not playing Magic in the early 2000s, I’ve nevertheless managed to pick up so many Kamigawa cards because they’re just so cheap! For a deck-builder who loves theme over everything else, this block can be a paradise. Add in some Tarkir cards to bulk things out and keep that theme going, and the world’s your lobster!

It seems that a major problem for Champions was the fact that it came hard on the heels of Mirrodin block. A block that made heavy use of artifact cards, and made the horror that is Affinity a thing, Mirrodin allowed players to built incredibly powerful decks that took a lot of beating, and while this is probably best left for a future blog, suffice it to say that it was a particularly dark and difficult time to be a Magic player. Kamigawa didn’t have the same power level and, while being flavourful in and of itself, was very soon overshadowed by the amazing original Ravnica block, which will also be the subject of another blog in the future! Added to this fact, it seems that, while a lot of westerners are familiar with Japan and Japanese culture – not least from the wide consumption of the amazing Studio Ghibli films – Kamigawa block went too deeply into that well, and employed a lot of reference and theme that still felt quite alien to a lot of American and European players.

Kamigawa block itself did have a lot to offer at the time, Mirrodin notwithstanding. There are a number of stories around the internet of folks who were there for Standard and whatnot, definitely worth checking out the reddit Q&A linked in the last paragraph, and also this article from Star City Games, where MTG Hall of Fame-er Masashi Oiso discusses the infamous Gifts Ungiven control deck. While other decks did the rounds, it seems some form of blue control was king. Some interesting history there!

At any rate, that’s my look back at Kamigawa block, three sets that are no longer standard, yet well worth the experience of diving into! How do you feel about the block? Were you playing Magic back when the sets came out? Let me know what you think in the comments!

Hey everybody!
I’ve talked a lot about Warhammer 40k 8th Edition on my blog this summer, as I was increasingly excited for the new edition of one of the most popular wargames around. Well, I’ve been playing quite a bit of it now, as well, so wanted to come back here and give some general thoughts and ramblings about what I think of the new experience!

I talked about my first game of 8th back in the middle of July, and have since played three further games, for a grand total of four: two with Necrons, and two with Dark Eldar. Three of those games were against the same guy and his Orks, and I’ve also played against Blood Angels. So!

First of all, I have to say that the game is just so much better than it was during 7th. 8th Edition has been out only a couple of months, and already I’ve played more games of it than I had during the entire run of 7th. In part this is due to my circumstances changing, as I finished with my degree course right when 8th came out, so never really had the time in the last edition – but then, I still had some time, but could never really fathom the complicated rules set in order to spend an entire day playing through a game. So there is that to consider.

8th Edition also just flows much more smoothly. I’m still very new to the game, with just 4 games to my name right now, so I can’t pretend to be some kind of expert, but I have to say, it’s a lot easier to just get on with a game rather than going through the endless, “What does this do again?” sort of book-keeping. So I do enjoy that.

I think the way that combat has been streamlined, it has led to a lot more cinematic moments being achieved. True, it was always possible to get exciting times during 7th, but the fact that you’re not consulting endless charts and trying to remember stats and equations means you can focus instead on what is happening in the game. Such as my Necron Overlord swooping down onto a group of Boyz and a Warboss to avenge the savage beating of a phalanx of Lychguard. There wasn’t a lot of, “Now, this is an open-topped skimmer, so it can go so many inches, and the guy inside can still do his thing…” and all the rest of it. You just move, shoot, charge and smash face! I like that a lot.

I never played Dark Eldar in 7th, but I have been enjoying them tremendously so far in 8th. Only had two games with them, but I think they definitely feel like the kind of army I like. There’s a lot going on with them, and trying to find a good balance within that army has been causing me some head-scratching as I write up list after list of potential musters, but I think it’s the sort of army that I’m going to enjoy trying to get to grips with, which is the main thing for me!

I had my most recent game with the army just last Friday, which is part of the reason why I wanted to write this blog for today. I’d been going quite heavily into the Kabal route from the start with these guys, but as I’ve managed to bring them to the table, I’m enjoying the Covens units so much that I feel I may begin to slant my build more towards the flesh-sculptors. Wracks are a unit type that I never thought I’d enjoy having as much as I currently do, being really quite a diverse bunch. We were talking on Friday about how they’re basically a close-combat orientated unit, yet the Acothyst can take what is essentially a sniper rifle, which just seemed to blow a lot of peoples’ minds. Getting into close combat, with a haemonculus nearby to buff their toughness and a Cronos to allow for re-rolling failed to wound rolls, it can be very useful!

I’ve yet to try out any Wych Cult units in my army, so I think the Reavers and Wyches may be making an appearance next time, just to see what happens!

Of course, as I said before, there is a lot going on with them, and I don’t ever seem capable of remembering Power From Pain for these chaps! Turn 1 shrugging off wounds on a 6 is stupidly useful, yet can I remember I can do that? Of course not! I definitely need to get more games in where I can try to remember these things!

So all in all, 8th Edition has done something that 7th never could, and gotten me wanting to play 40k with more regularity than I ever thought possible. I’m definitely pleased to be in the hobby right now, but more than just for the artistry of building and painting minis, but for playing games with them, too!